There's a nice discussion of the Fermi Paradox on Wikipedia.
I would tend to agree with Owen's conjecture about the era, insofar as
we have evolved on and live on a hot rock, said heat much driven by
heavy element decay. That might turn out to be as important as the
presence of water.
As far as interststellar communication goes, (1) we've been using radio
for communication for a *very* short time; a civilization even a hundred
years "ahead" (o there's an assumption) might consider it quaint (2) our
interstellar era might be characterized by a "buttons and threads"
model, and its just too early days yet to see on average any
interstellar feelers, so (3) the civs able to play might thus (due to
small sample size) be somewhat divided on the advantages and
disadvantages of contact so would perhaps be pickier about such contact
than we might assume by their "advanced" labeling.
Someone (Benford?) wrote: "The thing about aliens is, they're alien."
We're not necessarily any more or less alone if they turn up.
How *would* we respond to the message: "Hello meat, how's it going?"
Carl
On 4/1/12 12:42 PM, Owen Densmore wrote:
Gentle readers, as much as I like /.-like digressions, interesting
humor (but not religious rants), has anyone anything to add to the
idea that life origins may be bound to the era after Population II
star formation?
If so, we may be among the first of these very young life forms, +/- a
billion years or so.
-- Owen
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============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
